


8. Austin's Family

by chantiemaya



Series: Trixyawrimo 2018 [8]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 05:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16591721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantiemaya/pseuds/chantiemaya
Summary: Prompt #8: THEY ARE PARENTS (PREFERABLY TO AN ADORABLE BABY GIRL)





	8. Austin's Family

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on my story Hello? and it’s set between the original story and the ‘Almost 5 years’ chapter.
> 
> So, I fell off the wagon and didn't manage to write and post every day, boo :( Still gonna continue though!

**** T: on my way home but traffic is being a bitch

K: oh wow LANGUAGE

T: sorry i’m so annoyed

K: don’t text and drive! be safe i’ll start on dinner

Trixie can’t respond because the traffic in front of her is moving and she has to go with it. She puts the phone on the passenger seat with the screen facing down. Katya is right, she shouldn’t text and drive, but it’s damn annoying when she’s stuck can’t do anything about it. The radio is playing the news, which is also boring, and she’s so close to home, she’d be there in fifteen minutes if she’d walk. 

Owning two salons on different ends of Boston has made Trixie a very busy woman, but also a very happy one. Her concept of hiring employees and paying them a good standard rate for their hours, rather than renting out chairs to self-employed workers like is popular in her industry, has worked very well for her. She’s gotten the opportunity to train her own staff and keep their quality inside the company, instead of good people leaving after gaining the right experience. Their services aren’t cheap, but their clientele is happy, the employees get paid a good wage, and Trixie’s business is flourishing. 

Katya is at the big house with all the kids around her, skinning a big pile of tomatoes to make soup. Josh is helping Candace with her maths homework - it’s very clear that she’s more into the alpha subjects, while Josh is a true beta with his quick insight into science. Katya thinks Candace might be going in the direction of languages or writing, things that Katya has always been drawn to as well. 

Trinity and Naomi are currently fighting about who gets to play Barbie in their video game, and when Katya is done texting their mother, she’s about had enough. 

“Excuse me, young ladies!” 

The girls don’t even hear her, and Katya puts down her knife and walks into the living room with her hands dripping red tomato juice. 

“AY!” Katya yells, and everybody looks up. “Ah, great, thanks for paying attention. You two, no fighting, or I’m gonna shut that thing down,” she says, pointing her gross fingers over to the gaming console. Trinity pouts. 

“You have about half an hour to play, so play Barbie for fifteen minutes each.”

“But the game is much longer!” Naomi whines. 

“Then you give her your controller when your time is up. You work it out, or you don’t play.  _ Ponyal _ ?” [understood]

Katya likes to add words of different languages when she talks to the kids, mainly because it throws them off. Speaking Russian in full sentences always makes her sound like she’s angry, even when she says the loveliest things. 

When Trixie comes home, her whole family is already seated around the table waiting for her. She kisses all the kids, then Katya, and sits down to eat with them. A few hectic hours follow with dinner, cleaning up, helping the kids with homework, getting the little ones bathed and in bed, and then the adults can finally sit down and talk - or actually, Trixie is flipping channels on the TV and Katya is scrolling through her phone.

“Oh, how is your day looking tomorrow?” Trixie suddenly asks. 

“I’m working from home again, but I have a skype meeting late in the afternoon. Why?”

“I have to meet Austin’s teacher at lunch, would you come? Joe can’t make it and I kinda don’t wanna go alone…” Trixie says. Her nose is wrinkled and she looks like she’s smelling something gross. Katya turns to her on the couch. 

“Why? Do you expect it to be bad?”   
  
“I’m not sure, I just thought it was a little weird that she asks me to come over for a chat when there’s no… like… official chat moment?”   
  
“Yeah, she’s probably not making you come over to tell you he’s the cutest kid in the class, even though he is. I can join you, no problem.”    
  
Trixie grabs her phone and invites Katya to the meeting, who accepts it into her calendar.

 

*

 

When Katya arrives at the school the next day at exactly 12.30, Trixie is already waiting for her by the door. She’s unreasonably nervous - it’s not like Austin can fail any classes at five years old unless he’s been showing disruptive behavior or something.

The teacher brings them coffee and tea as they sit down at her desk and discuss how Austin is doing. 

“So, all in all, he’s doing great, it’s just his reading I’m concerned about,” the teacher says. “We’re starting to introduce words and letters and Austin isn’t picking up any of it. That’s not unusual,” she continues, “Lots of kids can’t even focus long enough for me to explain a letter to them. But while Austin is very willing, he just doesn’t get it. The mistakes he makes seem to indicate that he’s dyslexic.”

Trixie stares at her for a moment and blinks. 

“You can already tell at this age?” Katya wonders out loud. 

“Well, I am not an expert, but I do recognize some of the signs I’ve seen when I worked with older kids. For instance, I spelled my name on a piece of paper, Sarah, with an H at the end, and I asked them to copy it on their own papers. Austin wrote ‘Sarha’. He’s got all the letters, but he’s mixing up the position. I did the same thing with them the next day, and then he wrote ‘Shara’. He drew the letters very well, he didn’t mirror the S as many kids did, but he didn’t put them in the right place even though the example was right in front of him.”

“Ok,” Trixie says, then pauses to think. “But there are options for him, right? He can get tutoring or something?”

“Yes, that’s why I called you in here. I wanted to ask if you’d take him to get tested for dyslexia so he can have an early start. You’d have to apply for extra help and special assignments for when he progresses next year.”

“Would it be a reason to not let him progress?”   
  
“It’s not a requirement for them, so it wouldn’t be an issue. But this way you can be ahead of things and make sure he gets the help he needs in the next term.”

The teacher provides Trixie with all the necessary information to get Austin tested, advises two different institutes where they can take him and explains what the process would entail. 

“Oh, and before you leave, I wanted to show you this.” The teacher stands up to open a drawer in a large chest behind her. Every drawer has a kid’s name on it, and they keep all their assignments and work in there for the whole year. She takes out a big piece of paper and puts it down on the table. 

“We asked the kids to draw their family, everybody they live with, pets, people close to them. Austin made this. I thought you’d like to know what’s going on in his mind.” She gives them a moment to take in the drawing, clearing up their empty mugs and tidying something on her desk. 

The drawing shows Austin, clearly in the front and almost the biggest person on the picture, with his name written underneath in the teacher’s neat handwriting. Then there are all the siblings - Joshua, with a baseball cap, is the only one who’s drawn bigger than Austin, then there’s Candace, Naomi, and Trinity by order of age. On the far left next to Josh is Joe, for some reason he has a tiny version of his car on top of his head. To the far right next to Trinity are Trixie and Katya, and they are holding hands. Below Trixie it says ‘mommy’, below Katya it says ‘Kat’. 

Katya’s cheeks are warm and she bites her lip looking at how he drew her. The blonde bob is a mess, and her clothes are all black - very accurate. Trixie is wearing a pink princess dress and her hair isn’t yellow like Katya’s, it’s actually pink.

At the top of the paper, Austin has drawn blue clouds and an orange sun, and there’s a person in the sky as well. She seems to be wearing a blue dress, has yellow hair, but no limbs. It says ‘mommy in heaven’. 

Trixie whimpers softly, and Katya reaches under the desk to squeeze her thigh. Austin has drawn  _ every _ member of his family, which includes the mother to his four siblings, Mary. She passed away before Trixie met Joe, but Trixie has always made sure to keep her memory alive. She also made a point to explain to Austin early on that the other kids used to have a different mommy, 

“It worked,” Trixie whispers. She looks up at Katya, then the teacher and her eyes are filled with tears. “I told him the stories and it worked, he understood. I thought he was too young.”   
  
The teacher smiles at her. 

“They are still very little, and they don’t seem able to focus on something for more than half a second. But what we tell them sticks, trust me. If you keep telling him certain things, if you keep making sure that you show him certain things, he’ll know. He looked at his friend’s drawing and bragged that he had three parents and his friend only had two,” the teacher says with a grin at Katya. 

Back outside, both of them have to get back in their respective cars and get back to work. Katya gives Trixie a long hug and says, “Your kid is awesome, baby. You did a good job.”   
  
Trixie looks at her girlfriend and squeezes her hand. “Our kid, Kat. Our kid.”


End file.
